Newcastle Eagles got back to winning ways in the BBL on Friday night with a powerful and comprehensive 96-65 victory over bottom club Manchester Giants.

While the usual suspects of Dre Parks, Rahmon Fletcher and Scott Martin occupied the top three scoring positions once again, it was the performance of Orlan Jackman which drew as many eyes as the English forward collected a nice double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds.

When Fletcher missed a two-point jump shot midway through the third quarter, Jackman followed-up to flush the ball home with a one-handed dunk to take his tally to 12 points on the night and bring up his 1,000 career BBL points haul in some style and help the Eagles towards a comfortable win.

“It’s a beautiful feeling when you get a win, really beautiful,” said Jackman.

“You work hard in practise all week and when you turn that practise in to hard earned rewards it’s a really good feeling. I felt that for the most part we were on point tonight and deserved a big win.

“The last couple of losses have been hard to take. We put the effort in but came up short and that was disappointing. We analysed where we thought we went wrong and just went out tonight to try and put that right and we did.

“When we come together and play together it makes things that much easier during the game.”

Jackman was also quick to praise his team-mates but singled out one of the lesser sung members for special praise.

With Darius Defoe still out injured and missing his seventh game in a row many had expected to see Behrens step up earlier but things haven’t always gone to plan for the quiet USA born-Brit.

“Dre, Fletch and Scott pretty much did there thing all night and they are hard to stop but I felt Christian (Behrens) did a really good job for us tonight and it was nice to see him get so many minutes tonight which he deserved,” Jackman added.

“I though Chris deserved his chance to start and did a really good job for us especially on the defensive end.

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“He’s so big and has a great wingspan and was in there altering people’s shots, taking rebounds and generally stopping them (Giants) from making at run at us.”

But, for Jackman himself, it was not just about the win and his team getting back on winning tracks it was also about that personal milestone.

“Yeah man, 1,000 BBL points that’s a pretty cool feeling and something I’m proud of,” he said. “I was aware that I was getting close as I’d had some tweets and things telling me but when I got that dunk and it was announced that it was my 1,000 point it was a pretty sweet moment for me.

“But as nice as it was, the moment is really about the team and making sure we got that win. It was tight in the first quarter but we really put things to bed in the second quarter and from there it was a case of ensuring they couldn’t get back in to the game and closing it out which we did well.”

Newcastle go to Worcester next Friday followed by a midweek trip to London before two days later facing arch-rivals Glasgow Rocks at home.